View full sizeDuring a safety exercise, Alfonso Serna, a senior at Hillsboro's Liberty High School, tries to drive while texting on a winding course. "I can't do this!" he mutters more than once, punctuated by the sound of traffic cones crumpling beneath him.Michal Thompson/The Argus

Correction appended

Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney has a knack for putting things in context. Speaking before legislators last week, he recalled the time when drunken driving was not only commonplace but socially endorsed.

"It was considered a sign of manliness," said Courtney.

Well, we know where that went. States sobered up to the hazard, got tough with laws against it, and anyone caught drunk while driving now faces consequences far worse than any hangover. That's a good thing. Highway mortality linked to drunken driving has declined.

Now Courtney wants to get tougher on those who use cellphones while driving. Already the practice is against Oregon law, though folks may chatter away if their device requires no handling. But Courtney would like to bump up the offense from a Class D traffic violation to a Class B violation, which means setting the presumptive fine for the offense at $260, up from $110. The maximum fine could reach $1,000, up from $250.

This, too, seems reasonable when surveys show distracted driving, with cellphone use cited as a major culprit, increasingly accounts for vehicle crashes and consequent injuries and fatalities. The risk, meanwhile, grows: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that roughly 25 percent of all drivers nationwide admitted in 2010 to talking regularly on cellphones while driving. And the young present a particular challenge: Of those drivers surveyed between age 18 and 29, nearly 40 percent reported they regularly talked or texted while under way.

But much remains to be learned. Oregon's law, even with Courtney's strengthening, suffers the common myopia of most state legislation limiting cellphone use while driving. Research increasingly shows hands-free chatting isn't much safer, if at all.

That's because the human brain has to work hard to process a conversation with a person who is not in the car. Carnegie Mellon University researchers measured a 37 percent decrease in activity in the area of the brain that manages spatial tasks, such as driving, when the subject was merely listening to somebody unseen at the other end of a phone conversation. Onboard systems built into most new cars could be as much a problem as a convenience: Leaving the driver hands-free to chat may contribute to distracted driving, a well-documented risk.

Anyone driving today has seen it: The driver who makes a spectacularly bad turn, misses the light, or otherwise creates the near-miss -- all while holding a phone to his or her ear or fumbling at the wheel to send a text message. Courtney's bill would signal Oregonians of the seriousness of the threat and would be a sharp rebuke to those who feel texting, in particular, is merely a nuisance infraction.

A separate measure being floated in the House by Rep. Carolyn Tomei and others would go further, bumping up the maximum penalty for texting while driving to $2,000. While the motivation is right, that figure seems especially punitive and more than needed to serve as reminder that talking or texting via cell phone while driving can be a costly mistake.

Settling the hands-free question will take more time. But legislators should see immediate value in Courtney's proposal. Passage of Senate Bill 9 would be a vote for safer roadways and better driving.

The presumptive fine for those ticketed for cell phone use while driving would
be $260, and the maximum fine would be $1,000, under proposed legislation.
Judges would have discretion under Oregon law to impose fines ranging from a
minimum of $130 to the maximum of $1,000. An editorial in Monday's
editions misstated the terms of the proposed bill.